Conferences

From the 16th to the 19th of September, the Sheraton Hotel of New Orleans was home to biking advocates, city planners, designers, community leaders, writers, artists and more—people of all walks of life who care about great public spaces. Presented by Project for Public Spaces and Bike Easy, this convening was the 20th annual WalkBikePlaces Conference. Neighborhood Design Center is proud to have not only attended this international idea exchange, but to have presented our work at two sessions.

The opening Keynote address was given by Tunde Wey, a chef and activist who uses food to challenge people to think about inequity (known for provocative pop-ups such as ‘SAARTJ,’ where diners paid prices in ratio to their demographic’s average income in New Orleans; whites paid $30 while African Americans paid $12). His work set the tone for the rest of the conference: equity is the priority. From all we learned hosting the ACD conference in June, this convening echoed those Reverberations, pushing us to learn more.

Monday afternoon was the poster session. Over drinks, conference attendees explored poster presentations—one of which was NDC’s! The poster explores our Place Matters program, its basic framework, and how we’re measuring its impact over time.

On Tuesday, Jennifer Goold presented on our Place Matters program in greater depth. Alongside two of our partners, Karim Amin (University of Baltimore) and Nick Mitchel (Noisy Tenants), she shared case studies exploring how Place Matters can build better connected and draw investment to communities. We presented to a packed room and the team received support and questions from an engaged audience.

Karim Amin, a partner working with NDC in West Baltimore, talks about his work leading the University of Baltimore fellows program.

The Crescent City, for all its reputation as a sinner’s paradise, really is a joy for bikers and walkers, too. The flat streets, combined with an increasingly present bike signage/lanes, the functional bike share program, and the relatively relaxed traffic (is it the heat that makes us all slow down?) makes riding easy. And what a joy it was on Tuesday evening, when conference attendees joined Get Up N Ride NOLA on their weekly ride of the city streets. It was a great last night in the Big Easy, and reminded us to enjoy our own city by bike (or bike party!) more often.

Repost of the crowd of lighted bikers before our ride with Get Up N Ride NOLA on Tuesday night.

The closing panel of the conference, “A Different New Orleans Story” with strong words from Hermione Malone, Tom Wooten, and Sue Mobley.

In June, NDC’s Baltimore Community Design Works Program Manager Laura Wheaton attended the AIA 2018 Conference on Architecture. She shares her experience below.

The AIA 2018 Conference on Architecture was three weeks after I returned to NDC from maternity leave with my second daughter, Clare. I didn’t want to leave her for more than a night, and scanned the conference schedule for the two-day combination that would maximize learning and networking. I was sold when I realized I could attend the Equity by Design Committee’s fourth hackathon on pre-conference day and stay through Sir David Adjaye’s keynote the next evening before sprinting back home on a late train.

I’d never participated in a hackathon before, and the four hour timeline—with only two hours of work time—seemed intimidating. In practice, it was freeing. If we came up with a rubbish idea, so what? Not being obligated to carry anything forward beyond that afternoon liberated my group to dream. The result was an idea that we’d all love to see realized and have been emailing and conference calling about since the conference ended.

Among the six members of our team, architecture was the only common denominator. Architecture and that we were all nice people, of course. Together, we represented a wide range of experiences, backgrounds, types of employment, and employers. It was these differences that lead us to our idea: that compensation, which typically revolves around salary and sometimes a discussion of benefits, is currently too rigid a construct to adapt to all of our individual circumstances and goals.

How might compensation be viewed more holistically? How might it be more easily understood and communicated during usually private negotiations between employee and firm? If easily communicated, how might public conversations about compensation evolve? Might that improve equity in the architecture profession? Our approach, based on the ubiquity and legibility of nutrition labels, was “Compensation Facts.”

You can learn more about our idea, including the revised prototype (Who knew the nutrition fact lineweights and font specifications were available online?) at the Equity by Design blog. We’re architects, not lawyers, so we have little understanding of the human resources implications. It’s still just a dream. We are, however, looking into it, and my hope is that baby Clare enters the workforce with a system much more accessible, understandable, and equitable than what’s currently in place today.

Many thanks to the Equity by Design Committee and the Syracuse University Fisher Center for being supportive of breastfeeding mothers and providing a place for me to pump! I got to first meet Rosa Sheng, an architect I admire, while washing my pump at the office kitchenette. Because that’s how #archimoms roll.

In 2018, we’re honored to be hosting Reverberations — Roots and Relevance of Community Design, the Association for Community Design’s 2018 Conference, an annual event that brings together community members, faculty and students, architecture, design and planning firms, nonprofit organizations, and local governments invested in community-engaged design.

This year’s event will facilitate conversation about strategies to dismantle systemic conditions that give rise to inequality. Through critical analysis, reflection, and dialogue, we’ll deepen our understanding of and influence on the intersection of community design, racial equity, and environmental justice.

In addition to pushing forward the conversation on equitable community design, the ACD Conference continues NDC’s role as leaders in the work of making great and inclusive places.

Watch this space for the conference call for proposals in late January 2018.

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